4 Simple Ways to Learn Something New Every Day (Without Taking a Single Class)

linnearader
Jun 2
9 min read

I’ve mentioned in other posts how I like to learn. My goal is to learn something new every day. The other post titled “Learning Through the Lens of Social Media: When Digital Interactions Become Life Lessons,” dives into the lessons you can learn through digital platforms. This post will dig into other ways to learn through everyday life and develop new skills without formal education.

Person reading to learn — Reading to Learn

Why Everyday Learning Beats Traditional Classroom Education

While there are hundreds of ways we can learn every day, this post will focus on the following:

· Personal conversations

· Observation

· Trial and error

· Reading/Listening

These everyday learning strategies can transform anyone into a lifelong learner while fitting seamlessly into your daily routine.

Learn From Every Conversation: Why Your Coworker Is Your Best Teacher

Every person you talk to has different professional experience, life knowledge, and perspectives than you. If you're paying attention you can learn from them.

Most of us, depending on our work/life situation have many conversations several times every day. I certainly have more than a few. You can simply walk through life barreling through these conversations and ignoring opportunities to learn from them, or you can take a few minutes to reflect, or to take in the full situation.

We can learn every day from those around us if we just pay attention. Think of your co-worker that has been in the job longer than you. Your younger co-worker who understands more about a new process you need to learn. Think of your friends whose children are one year older than each of your children. Your neighbor down the street. Every person you talk to has different professional experience, life knowledge, and perspectives than you. If you’re paying attention you can learn from them.

These opportunities teach me not only the different perspectives that I may not be aware of, but also technical skills and all sorts of other soft skills. Simply starting a conversation with someone you don’t know, or someone you haven’t talked to recently can provide a huge deal of knowledge if you’re open to it.

These blog posts are perfect examples of what I can learn from personal conversations. Many of you probably became aware of the existence of these blog posts from a conversation we personally had. Others may have found the blog through our website, social media, etc., but many of you heard about it directly from me. As I get the opportunity to talk to more and more people about the blog (and my business), I learn things every day. The existence of a blog that shares this type of information draws people to talk to me about challenges they’ve faced, successes they’ve experienced and so much more. I LOVE IT!

These conversations are amazing in so many ways. I’ve learned how colleagues tackled difficult interactions with residents. I’ve gained knowledge and perspective on how employees at various levels interpret the same situation. I’ve heard about how leaders and their co-workers have navigated through changes within their organization successfully.

Each conversation uncovers different tactics to face the situations. These tactics are different for everyone. As we learn about leadership and how to work with others, there is NO one sized fits all cookie cutter solution. We must take the skills and knowledge and form it to meet our personalities, our organizations, and our situations.

The goal isn't perfection—it's progress. Some days you'll have profound conversations that shift your entire perspective. Other days, you might simply notice how someone manages a difficult situation with grace.

The Art of Observation: What Actions Teach Us That Words Can't

Moving from conversations to observations, what people say is certainly something to be learned from, but watching what they DO, that will teach you volumes. Observing others in how they act and what they do is a great way to notice examples to follow as well as those NOT to follow.

I did a whole blog post about mentorship. That blog post was all about the importance of finding mentorship in everyday situations and outlined those that have mentored me through my career. While some of what those mentors taught me was based on what they’ve said to me, most was on observations I made by witnessing their actions.

Through years of observing workplace dynamics and leadership styles, I've discovered that the most successful professionals are often the best everyday learners.

Real-World Observation Examples: What You Can Learn Right Now

Less monumental is observing people in day-to-day activities and learning from their actions. For example,

You sit in a meeting, and someone spends 75% of their time on their phone. Seemingly gathering little from the meeting itself. What observation do you gain? This meeting is not important to them; they have something far more important going on with their phone. What do I learn from this? It’s a painstaking reminder of how important it is to set a good example in meetings, to respect the time other participants are giving, and, if necessary, to excuse ourselves from a meeting to address important situations on our phones, rather than attempt multi-tasking unsuccessfully.

You witness a road crew working. Everyone is engaged, moving and helping each other. The crew members all know what the others are doing and are focused on their safety. Heads are moving and eyes are watching. Their attention and focus is visibly and physically present. We are witnessing hard working, safety-focused individuals. What can I learn from this? First, if I’m a person working to learn how to work on this team and be a member of the crew, observing this behavior teaches me what will be expected of me. I can also gain knowledge about how tasks are completed. From a different perspective, I can learn even more about how to ensure my body language and actions match my intentions.

You’re working in an office and overhear a conversation on the phone. A member of the public has several concerns about what is going on within their community and is communicating their displeasure. The individual answering the phone addresses the resident’s concerns by listening (and actually hearing) to the entire situation, answering questions, and providing facts. The end result is the resident hanging up the phone satisfied by the interaction.

The goal and intentions of the individual answering the phone was to address this resident’s issue as much as possible. Observing the interaction provides many ways to communicate with individuals, but especially those that are not happy to start. You observe the listening skills and the outcomes that are the result. You also observe that, while the interaction is on the phone, the body language of the person answering the phone is open and focused on only the person on the phone.

What do I learn from this? Several things, one being that just because someone starts out being upset, treating the individual with respect, listening fully to their concerns, and politely and empathetically responding, can result in a positive outcome. Another thing you can learn is more specifically each individual skill that was utilized to deescalate the situation, provide the information, communicate in general. These skills can transcend into thousands of situations in every person’s daily life.

Master Trial and Error: The Strategic Approach to Learning by Doing

Talking about learning in different ways would be incomplete without the exercise of trial and error. To be clear, learning through trial and error is NOT just wandering through life trying different things and stumbling into what works and what doesn’t. Trial and error learning is:

1. Figure out a problem you want to solve, an issue you want to address, a clear identification of a goal.

2. Try different approaches. Be open to new ideas and different ways to solve your problem.

3. Step back and observe the results. Analyze how the different approaches have and have not worked.

4. Reflect and adjust. Adjust the approach to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t or try something completely different.

Communicating is a perfect example of a skill to learn to improve through trial and error. Every person communicates in a different way and finds comfort and excellence through different ways. What may work well for one person, won’t for others.

Growing as a leader I initially communicated in a way that I appreciated; direct, blunt and to the point. Well…that can come off as rude, condescending, mean, and angry, none of which were my intent. That resulted in my needing to trial and error how to communicate in a way that was comfortable to me, but also worked well with my team.

To be honest, I went from direct, blunt, and to the point, so far to the other extreme that it was then wishy-washy, indirect, unclear, and generally unhelpful. I had to pick out different actions, tones, and ways to word things that were actually effective. Eventually I found how I could be effective and comfortable, all through trial and error.

To think of it in a basic context that we should all be able to relate to, learning to ride a bike is done through trial and error. We learn the basics of how the mechanics work through either watching others or someone explaining it to us. Then we try. We feel how balance works, how to hold our bodies, how to pedal, how to steer. We try one way and may tip and fall, so we try another, we keep trying until we have it down pat! The same strategic approach applies to professional skill building—whether you're learning to give presentations, manage a team, or navigate difficult conversations.

Turn Dead Time Into Learning Time: Reading and Listening Strategies

Learning through reading or listening to audio can be a formal learning process as well as one utilized in day-to-day learning. Formally, it’s a standard way to learn in an educational setting. However, we often overlook these types of informal learning opportunities, be this through reading a blog like this one, listening to a podcast, picking up a magazine at the doctor’s office, clicking on a link on social media and reading the article, searching a topic of interest on the internet, or any number of other opportunities.

Through these avenues you can learn so much. Time that wouldn’t otherwise be utilized for personal development can be transformed into valuable learning opportunities. You can learn small tidbits of information to huge transformations in understanding and knowledge.

Making the Most of Drive Time and Daily Downtime

The beauty of learning through everyday life is that it's always available to us—no enrollment required, no tuition fees, and no waiting for the 'right time' to begin.

For example, when I drive, I listen to podcasts. My daily commute is about 3 minutes, so my commute doesn’t offer this opportunity to learn very well. However, when I drive anywhere else, I try to listen to a podcast. I say try because well…I was listening to Rachel Hollis’s podcast one day and my kiddo was in the car. She was discussing hormonal shifts as we age and apparently learning about hormonal fluctuations and menstruation wasn’t what he wanted to do in the car! Now when he gets in the car he hits pause just in case.

Podcasts are amazing ways to gain knowledge and information. Right now, my two favorites are Mel Robins and Rachel Hollis. I LOVE their podcasts, and I’ve learned so much from, well, the hormonal fluctuations mentioned above, which are quite helpful at my age, to how Arnold Schwarzenegger persevered through challenges and met his goals, to how to turn intentions into actions and so much more.

I hope this blog has provided learning opportunities for each of you at one time or another. I have learned a great deal not only on how to write a blog (it’s a talent I’m still working on) but also researching information to add to the topics I want to write about. Whether it’s this blog or others, blogs provide an opportunity to learn about various topics from a great variety of perspectives. They are microlearning opportunities when you have just a few minutes to gain some insight and knowledge.

Learning every day is important. The beauty of learning through everyday life is that it's always available to us—no enrollment required, no tuition fees, and no waiting for the "right time" to begin. Every conversation offers a new perspective, every observation provides a lesson, every trial teaches us something about resilience, and every article or podcast we consume adds another layer to our understanding of the world.

What strikes me most about these four learning approaches is how they compound over time. The colleague who teaches you technical skills through conversation might inspire you to observe how other experts in your field approach similar challenges. That observation could lead you to try a new method yourself, and when you inevitably hit a roadblock, you might find yourself reaching for a book or podcast that helps you push through.

The goal isn't perfection—it's progress. Some days you'll have profound conversations that shift your entire perspective. Other days, you might simply notice how someone manages a difficult situation with grace or discover a single sentence in an article that makes everything click. These small moments of learning accumulate into the larger story of who we're becoming.

So tomorrow, when you're having coffee with a colleague, walking past that road crew, trying a new approach to an old problem, or scrolling through your phone during a quiet moment, remember: you're not just going through your day—you're actively writing the next chapter of your own education. The classroom is everywhere, the teachers are all around us, and the curriculum is as rich and varied as life itself.

These simple learning techniques can help anyone become a more effective learner and develop professional skills naturally. Keep learning, keep growing, and most importantly, keep sharing what you discover along the way. After all, you never know who might learn something valuable from your own experiences and insights.

Ready to start your everyday learning journey? Pick one method from this post and try it tomorrow—then share what you discover in the comments below.

And, as always, carry social kindness with you everywhere you go. The world needs you and your positive mindset!